


The Hundredth Night

by roquentine



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: F/M, First Time, Hotel Sex, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-11-23 12:56:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18152150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roquentine/pseuds/roquentine
Summary: Robin is done staring at the wall between their hotel rooms. It’s time.





	The Hundredth Night

**Author's Note:**

> I can’t believe my first foray into this fandom is 4K words of PWP. (Okay, truth, I *can* believe it.) I am [roquentine19](http://roquentine19.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr. Thanks for reading!

She sat on a hotel bed and stared at a hotel wall for what felt like the hundredth time.

It wasn’t actually the hundredth. It just _felt_  like the hundredth. And whatever number it actually was, it was too many.

Too many awkward hotel check-in conversations followed by too many walks along hallways to adjacent rooms followed by too many restless nights staring at the literal wall between them, an omnipresent physical manifestation of the figurative one.

* * * * *

She knew the decision of their timing was hers to make. She was the one going through a divorce, she was the one who needed the time to mourn that chapter of her life no matter how much she had wanted it to end, and she was the one who needed the solitude to be certain of her feelings. 

(She was certain of her feelings.)

And she could tell he was waiting for her, in a million different unspoken ways. He was offering her that time and solitude, with so much patience and zero pressure, her heart ached when she thought of it.

With a surge of determination, and a small pang of nervousness, she decided she was done staring at walls.

Before she could think too much, before she could question and analyze and what-if her way out of the impulse to go to him, she moved to the door of her room, and pulled it open.

He was standing there.

* * * * *

Just standing there, slightly leaning forward, his hand braced along the doorjamb, his head bowed, his eyes closed.

He’d been there for probably five full minutes, waiting for all the internal recriminations in his head to shut the fuck up, waiting for his courage to claw its way to the surface, aching leg be damned.

He looked up when he heard the door open. For some reason she didn’t startle, didn’t look surprised to see him standing silently in the hallway, and he didn’t wonder why she’d opened the door when he hadn’t yet knocked. They each took a breath as though to speak, but then didn’t speak, and then another breath, and then again no words.

So they looked at each other, and breathed in the space between them.

* * * * *

After a long moment, she lifted her hand, so slowly, and placed her palm gently on his chest. Her fingers curled against the fabric of his shirt, then flattened again. A question.

With their eyes still locked, he trailed his fingertips up her arm and over the back of the hand pressed against him, brushing lightly along the crevices between her fingers. He grasped her wrist and brought her palm to his mouth, pressing a kiss there, and his eyes fell closed for just a second, as did hers. An answer, and a question of his own.

So she slid her palm along his cheek, behind his jaw, and pulled him down, and finally, finally, his mouth was on hers, and she felt his hands cradling her head, and he tasted of whisky and tobacco, and doubt, and hope.

* * * * *

They stood in the doorway for a long time, the kissing new and quiet and patient, for now. He had noted the security camera when they checked in, and in the back of his mind, he wondered how this must look to whoever might be watching, him standing motionless outside her door, her opening it on her own, their wordless exchange of looks, this gentle kiss.

And then she moved into his body, and he felt her mold against his chest, and he knew what she would feel pressing into her stomach, and his mind went blank of everything except her.

* * * * *

When she realized they probably weren’t actually going to stay in the doorway forever, mundane reality gave her a nudge. “Look… before we’re… too far gone...” she said, more or less into his mouth, “do you have…?”

He stopped kissing her for a second, and a sheepish grin tugged at his mouth in confession, and he looked up at the ceiling with mock innocence and his eyes crinkled and she laughed at him and pulled him into the room.

* * * * *

She kissed him and kissed him, trying it from every angle, her hands on his jaw and then his neck and then sliding down his shoulders, snaking under his arms to his back. She knew they had time, they had so much time, and she didn’t have to touch him everywhere right now, but she wanted to and it was hard not to try.

She felt his strong, rough hands stroke over her back, then move down to slip underneath her loose t-shirt, and the feel of his fingertips tracing lightly along her spine made her pull back with a shudder, and she gripped his arms to steady herself.

She looked at him, and thought about the fact that he was about to become only the second man to ever see her naked, and reached for the determination that had prompted her to open the door in the first place. She took a deep breath, crossed her arms, grabbed the hem of her shirt, and slowly pulled it over her head.

* * * * *

He looked down at her face, flushed and open, in the moments before she lifted her shirt, her eyes full of a breathtaking combination of vulnerability and complete trust.

They had never discussed it outright, but he would wager that she had married the only person she had ever slept with, and the gravity of what she was doing tonight, what she was offering him and what she was asking of him, was not lost on him.

She lifted her shirt, and he almost didn’t want to look. This moment meant more than that, more than the prurient arousal in seeing her breasts, more than a casual one-night stand where the goal was merely an exchange of physical pleasure.

This was so much more.

* * * * *

She was surprised to see his eyes locked on her face when she discarded her shirt and looked back up at him. She saw so much understanding there, so much reassurance, and for the second time that night she was struck by how perfectly they were able to communicate without any words at all.

His hand came up to settle against her cheek, and she closed her eyes and breathed into the touch. Then she smiled, and tugged on his elbow, encouraging him, and his palm drifted down, along her neck and collarbone and lightly across her breast, until he cupped the weight of it, and the groan of desire that came from his throat flooded her with a rush of raw need. 

* * * * *

He kissed her again then, pulling her into him as he shuffled backward and sat heavily on the bed. She climbed up, her knees at his hips, her arms wrapping around his neck, his hands roaming over her back, and it was all so effortless, as though they had fit together like this a thousand times before.

Her head fell back when he leaned in to cover her hardened nipple with his mouth. “Oh, fuck,” came out of her in a hoarse whisper, almost involuntarily, and she felt him chuckle against her chest, his beard an unfamiliar and unexpectedly arousing scratch against the tender skin between her breasts.

She giggled too, and felt the blush rising in her cheeks, but then she gripped his head and angled it up and covered his mouth, her tongue finding his, shameless now in her hunger. She worked her way down the buttons of his shirt, pulling it free of his waistband and pushing it down over his shoulders, trapping his arms and forcing him to lean back on his hands. She felt him gasp into her mouth as she trailed her nails lightly down the front of his t-shirt, until her fingers found his belt buckle, and she started to work it loose.

* * * * *

Not for the first time, he lamented the fact that there was no graceful, seductive way to remove one’s prosthetic leg.

He pulled back from her mouth. “Sorry, I hate to interrupt this, but I should probably...” He sat forward and worked his arms free of the oxford, then kissed her again, gently this time, by way of an apology. He gripped her waist and lifted, encouraging her to move off, and she swung over to kneel beside him on the bed. He stood to finish unbuckling his trousers, then sat again, pushing them down over his knees before shucking them off completely.

Her hand roamed over his broad, strong back as she watched him methodically detach the prosthesis. It felt so intimate, this moment, another shared vulnerability between them, and in this quiet interlude, the enormity of what they were doing jumped to the surface. Tears sprang to her eyes, and she quickly blinked them away, fearing he would mistake the reaction for pity.

When he was finished, the prosthesis and coverings carefully set aside, she quietly said “Can I….”, and then felt unsure. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Does it hurt?” He shook his head, and gently took her hand from her lap, and brought it to his knee.

She smoothed her palm down what remained of his calf, skimming the lines of the scars, her motion slow and inquisitive, learning this as she wanted to learn every part of him. She covered the end with her palm, drew wide circles over the rounded flesh with her fingertips.

Then her mouth quirked into a grin as she trailed her hand back up, along the inside of his thigh, to the hem of his boxer briefs. Her fingers curled to dip underneath, her nails scratching lightly back and forth as he sucked in a breath. She flattened her palm again and drew her hand up further until she felt hardness and heat under the thin fabric.

* * * * *

She snaked her fingers through the gap and he leaned back on his hands again, giving over to the sensation. The lightness of her touch made it feel like an electric current was buzzing over the entirety of his skin. It was maddening, and his hands fisted the sheets.

She started to crawl back around, clearly intending to kneel in front of him, but he caught her arm and pulled her forward. “Hey, not yet,” he said, and brought his hand to the back of her neck, and kissed her. He grinned as his voice dropped to a whisper: “I mean, I want that, because I want everything, but first...”

And he kissed her again as she whimpered into his mouth, and leaned into her, encouraging her backwards until she was stretched out on the bed. He slipped his hands into the waistband of her joggers, and then found the hem of her underwear, and he looked up at her as he worked them down over her hips, checking in, making sure, looking for any signs of hesitation.

But she lifted her lower body to help, and kicked playfully as he pulled the clothing completely free of her legs.

* * * * *

He didn’t want to stare at her too obviously, even though he wanted time to stop so he could stare at her for as long as he liked.

Starting at her ankle, he trailed the backs of his fingers up her calf, over her knee, and around to the inside of her thigh. He watched her carefully, still, for any hint of discomfort, but her legs drifted open as his hand moved higher.

He shifted himself up to lay alongside her and ghosted his fingertips over her skin at the tops of her thighs, back and forth. He lifted his eyebrows to ask the question.

She nodded in response. “Yes… _please_ …” she whispered.

He leaned over and kissed her as his hand settled between her legs, his fingertips gently exploring. Her gasp broke the kiss, and he propped himself up on an elbow to watch her face as he started slow, mimicking the light touch she tormented him with earlier. Gradually, he increased pressure, speed, intensity, before he slid one finger inside her, eliciting a long, low moan.

* * * * *

Before long, she was looking up at him with unfocused eyes, breathless, gasping, sensation pinging through her body like a pinball. “Look, we don’t have to…” A gasp interrupted her as his thumb changed pressure. “Oh, fuck…” He cocked an eyebrow, grinning. “I just mean…” Another gasp. “This… I’m…”

She tried to steady her breathing, tried to get out her entire thought, but his rough and otherwise entirely inelegant hand was doing absolutely insane things to her. “It’s not... quick… this, for me…” A low groan as he slowly crooked and straightened the finger inside her, then did it again. “Christ… I’m just saying... if you want to… get to the good stuff...”

He leaned down to murmur in her ear, his voice low and deep. “Are you kidding me? This _is_ the good stuff.” He slid a second finger inside.

“Fuck,” she said again, her breath catching. “Cormoran…”

“Close your eyes,” he whispered.

Her responses to his touch thrilled him more than he would ever have imagined. He would never get tired of watching her like this.

* * * * *

She was close, so close, clearly chasing it with everything she had, as his fingertips moved against her in steady, quick circles. Her breathing was staggered, her fists white-knuckling the sheets, her face a grimace of concentration, her voice a whimper. Tears leaked from her eyes, squeezed tightly shut. “Cor… Cormoran… oh, fuck… _please...”_

On impulse, he lowered his head and sucked her nipple into his mouth, hard, fast, and sharp against his teeth.

She exploded beside him, and for all the women he had slept with, all that he’d ever brought off, he had never seen anything more beautiful, and he knew he was deeply, permanently, and irrevocably in love with her, and watching her now, he was happier than he could ever remember being in the whole of his life.

* * * * *

Her soon-to-be-ex-husband had never, ever, not once, made her come like that. He had done all right by her, most of the time, but it was never  _ that. _

She wasn’t sure she had ever made  _ herself _ come like that, now that she thought about it.

She didn’t know if it was pure skill, or the novelty of her first someone else, or the fact that this tension had been vibrating between them almost palpably for months, but _fucking hell_.

When she finally came back to earth, and opened her eyes, and looked up at him, blinking slowly, she found him smiling down at her, looking enormously pleased with himself.

She giggled and pulled him down, hard against her own mouth, as her hand slid along his chest and down over his stomach. She rolled him to his back and felt for the hem of his t-shirt, pulling it up and only breaking their kiss long enough to shift it over his head.

She combed her fingertips through the hair on his chest and torso, then planted her hands on the mattress and leaned over him until her breasts just barely skimmed his skin, moving down to the waistband of his boxers. She grinned a bit wickedly as she mirrored what he had done earlier, pulling the underwear down and off his body.

She leaned over him then, her eyes on fire, never leaving his face, thrilling to the reaction she saw there as she licked a long, slow stripe along his erection before closing her eyes and pulling him into her mouth.

* * * * *

God, all he wanted to do was watch her, but in the interests of trying to let this last at least a full minute, he screwed his eyes shut and pressed his head against the pillow, trying to breathe through the flood of sensation around his cock and the brush of her hair on his thighs and he focused on keeping his hips still and his hands off her head, but then she wrapped a fist around the base and started sucking a powerful rhythm and he summoned all the willpower he had to reach for her.

“Fuck, Robin,” he groaned, and pulled at her arm, “you have to stop, or I’ll…”

She pulled off with a moan and he pulled her up and she captured his mouth again, hot and messy and breathless. “Condom?” she whispered.

“Trouser pocket,” he panted, and she giggled as she stretched across him to reach for the floor.

“Fuck,” he said again at the view, unable to resist running a hand over her arse, squeezing a palmful of flesh, and then stroking over her thigh to the back of her knee, when she squealed and kicked her leg up, and he made a note that she was ticklish there, and he imagined holding her leg down as he moved his mouth over that patch of skin, and suddenly she was kissing him again and pressing a foil packet into his hand.

* * * * *

He ripped the packet open, rolled the condom on, and moved back over her, thrilling to the feel of her reaching for his mouth, of her body underneath him, of the sounds she made deep in her throat as her jaw worked against his. Finally she slid a hand down, and settled him against her, and in one long, slow push, he sank inside.

She broke the kiss with a moan of distress and winced for just a second as her grip tightened on his shoulders. He stilled, and mouthed at her temple, waiting for her to adjust, and indulged in a moment of smug satisfaction about his size relative to that git of a husband.

A few moments passed before she tentatively lifted her hips against him. He pulled back a little in response, and pushed forward again, as slow as he could manage, his eyes fixed on her face. “Okay, love?” he whispered, and she looked at him and nodded, running her hands down his back, to the curve of his arse, pressing him into her.

And he kissed her again, and started to move.

* * * * *

_ Safe. _

The feeling pinged in the back of his mind, an oddity amid all the other sensations of pleasure and exhilaration threatening to overwhelm him. 

_ You’re safe. _

He never knew he could feel safe. He couldn’t remember if he had ever, really, felt safe. Certainly not throughout most of his early childhood, and then even after he went to live with Ted and Joan, he had never learned how to trust the stability. He had gone to sleep every night planning what he would do if the next day was the day it came crashing down around him. He still did, truth be told.

But now, right now, in this hotel room, in her arms, in her body, underneath him and surrounding him, he felt totally and completely safe, for the very first time.

_ Robin. _

And then it did overwhelm him, and he didn’t know what to do with it all, and he screwed his eyes shut and tucked his head into her neck and breathed her in and moved in her and with her, and let himself surrender to his overpowering release.

It rocketed through him and everything went white, and he felt her arms on his back and her legs around his waist, holding his imperfect, ungainly body against her ethereal one, and he turned the sob that clutched in his throat into a loud, stuttered exhale against her neck, because he thought if he gave into it, right now, at this moment, he would lose it completely, and he didn’t want that to be what they remembered of this night.

* * * * *

She held him through it, folding herself around him, and listening to him breathe, and she could feel dampness from his eyes on the skin under her jaw, and she held him and breathed with him and loved him so much she thought her heart might explode out of her body with the force of it.

When his breathing had steadied, she felt his mouth press a kiss against her throat before his hands pushed against the mattress. He slid down her body a bit, until his head was just under her ribcage, and he closed his eyes and laid his cheek against her belly and wrapped his arms around her waist, and held on.

* * * * *

They dozed for about half an hour, until reality seeped in again.

“Cormoran?” she whispered, squeezing at his shoulder. “Corm? Hey, I’m sorry, I have to… get up.” She smiled down at him and wriggled her hips a bit, to try to loosen his embrace.

He looked up at her sleepily, then seemed to understand. “Oh, yeah, ‘course.” He pushed himself up on his hands with a groan and crawled back up her body to kiss her, just for a second, before collapsing on his side as she giggled and scrambled to the ensuite.

He sighed and swung himself over to the edge of the bed to attach the prosthesis. He could use a wee himself, and a bit of a clean-up, and should also probably deal with the condom he had indelicately shoved out the bottom of the bed in the somewhat dazed aftermath. He had just found it when she emerged, glancing at him shyly before quickly crawling back into the bed and pulling up the sheets.

“Seriously, love, between the two of us, you are not the one who should be self-conscious that we’re naked,” he grumbled. He was only half-joking, and still grateful for the dark as he made his own way to the loo.

* * * * *

She loved how easily he called her “love.”

She waited quietly as he removed the prosthesis again, then lifted the sheet for him, and he slid in to settle on his back, and she kissed him and laid against his chest, and even though it was the first time they fit together like this, it didn’t feel new or strange, but familiar, and how it should have been all along.

“I’m glad you’re here,” she said, her voice low.

His arms tightened around her. “Me too.”

“I’m sorry it took me so long.”

“Hey, don’t start that,” he said, a hand going to the back of her head and smoothing over her hair. “You took the time you needed to take. It wouldn’t have been right any sooner, not by a day.”

“And you’ve been waiting so patiently. Right outside my door, apparently.”

She felt his chest rumble as he chuckled. “Yeah, I think I was going to ask you for toothpaste.”

“Toothpaste?”

He shrugged. “I just... wanted to see you again.”

And that made her eyes fill, and she pulled up to kiss him again, soft and slow, like it had been in the hallway. She lifted her head to look at him.

“I’m not scared,” she whispered, as he gently thumbed away the dampness on her cheeks.

His brows knotted together. “Scared?” he asked quietly.

“Of this, of us, of tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that.” She smiled. “I’m not scared that we’ve changed everything. I thought I might be, but I’m not. I’m excited for this next part. I’m happy.” The tears jumped back to her eyes, and she gave a short laugh and said, “Believe it or not,” as she scrubbed them away herself this time, then her voice dropped back to a whisper. “I’m so happy.”

He took her face in his hands then and leaned up to kiss her, softly but thoroughly, and when he pulled away he held their foreheads together and said, “I love you like mad, you know.”

She smiled again, and nodded, the tears falling freely now, and said “Yes, and I love you, too,” and shuddered and laughed and kissed him back with everything she had.


End file.
